The Good Racecraft Guide

We already have the excellent GT Planet Online Racing Rules & Guidelines (OLR) that defines very clearly what good racing is to us, I expect you have all read & refer back to them regularly so that you understand what is required of GT Planet members when racing online in certain organised events. However, what about their practical application & all the subtle nuances that constitute good racecraft?

This article will cover what the cleanest gentleman drivers here at GT Planet consider to be good racecraft, etiquette/manners, & general sportsmanship. If you have any opinions on the matter please post them in this thread, together we can make each other better & more considerate drivers by sharing the wealth of knowledge we all have regarding exactly what it is that defines good racecraft. The following is based on my many experiences of gentlemanly online racing with some the cleanest forum members out there over the last few years, mainly in GT5 Prologue & GT5, but now also in GT6.​

Defending & Attacking

An experienced racer will take whatever line he feels necessary into any given corner in order to defend & maintain his place, he is entitled to do so as he has track position over the pursuing driver, remember that the fastest line is not always the winning one. It is the other chaps job to force him into an error, whilst still driving cleanly of course, or wait for one to occur naturally & then take advantage of it, albeit in the proper fashion. An inexperienced racer will, in his endless optimism, tend to stuff it up the inside at every unavailable opportunity when trying to pass, imagining he is driving well but making far too much contact & causing many unnecessary incidents. Also, some lacking in good racecraft tend to drive right up to & into the driver in front, as they do not have the common sense to adjust their throttle & braking to account for following in the slipstream of another. You will notice that drivers who have good racecraft make very little contact when following & passing others on track.

Overtaking & Being Overtaken

When attempting to overtake up the inside on the run up to a tight high speed corner, like 130R on Suzuka for instance, sometimes you are not close enough to pull it off. The discerning driver knows when this is the case & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so as not to cause an incident. There is after all only 1 racing line through 130R. The aggressive driver goes for it regardless, stuffs it up the inside, causes an incident, & puts his poor racecraft on display for all to see. If both cars do somehow manage to make it through the corner side by side, which will obviously result in lower cornering speeds, the bad driver has now let the rest of the field catch up some, let the the drivers ahead increase their lead, or sometimes both. Not only is it bad manners, it is also counter productive. You will not see mature racers executing such mindlessly aggressive do or die maneuvers, they get their overtaking done well before the apex of such corners.

When being overtaken up the inside on the run up to a tight high speed corner, like 130R on Suzuka for instance, the competitive driver with good racecraft recognises when the battle is lost & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so that both cars can make the apex of the corner at pretty much full racing speed. The overly optimistic driver will carry on around the outside at full throttle in a dangerous attempt to defend his position, which is clearly already lost. You will not see top class racers out on track performing in this way, as this kind of optimism can lead to a catastrophic & entirely unnecessary incident. However, a possible exception to these scenarios might be when two intelligent drivers are more or less alongside each other on the run up to 130R & battling for position on the final lap, where driving slower & side by side through the corner to keep track position would lead to a win, or a higher finishing position.

The correct or optimal racing line in certain corners, like the last turn at Fuji for instance, can look very wide to the untrained eye. The undiscerning racer cannot tell the difference between a driver taking the correct racing line, & one going wide into these types of corners, he thinks the chap in front has made an error & stuffs it up the inside in a futile effort to overtake. When the driver in front accelerates towards the apex, the driver behind now finds he has placed his car in the wrong position, & there is contact. Once again, by slowing both cars up the bad driver has let the chaps in front pull away some, & those behind catch up. The intelligent racer knows there is usually no real advantage to this, & does his overtaking on the following straight or when he sees someone has actually gone wide in these types of corners.

When the driver of the car in front has made an error & gone wide into a corner, the well mannered driver behind will go for the overtake but leaves just enough room for him as he accelerates out, this is because he knows that the other car is still going round on the outside of the track. An inexperienced driver, or one with bad manners, will also go for the overtake but accelerates out of the corner at full speed using all of the proper racing line as if he is the only one on track. This leads to contact, pushing the other driver off track, or even an incident involving multiple cars if battling in a pack. You will not see gentlemanly racers causing this kind of incident through such a lack of manners.

When an experienced & thoughtful racer is being overtaken up the inside in slower/wider corners, he knows where the other driver is on track & leaves him just enough room so that they can drive around together side by side, he takes a different line while still maintaining a reasonable amount of speed. The aggressive or unthoughtful racer tries to return to the racing line, turns into the other driver & causes unnecessary contact, as he is not discerning enough to make the correct adjustment to his line. Drivers with good racecraft have the ability to adapt quickly to various situations, to make better judgements, & tend to avoid & not cause as many incidents.

Drafting

It is considered extremely unsporting to weave about left & right all over the track trying to stop your opponent from drafting you, it is also quite undignified & not at all gentlemanly (do not confuse this with blocking by weaving to stop another driver from passing you, which as you already know is against the OLR, see rules 10:A-C). A well mannered & intelligent racer may choose to take a variety of different lines through corners to try to minimise the amount of draft his opponent gets, he is entitled to take any line he wishes being the driver in front. Also, when coming onto the straight, he may continue turning past the track out point & take a different line down it. From then on however, manners dictate that he only has 1 move either left or right to choose his line into the next turn, this should be done early & slowly enough to give other drivers following behind a fair chance to react, lest there be an otherwise avoidable incident.

When drafting in a pack down the straight heading for a turn, the experienced driver near the back knows that he is drafting a car that is drafting other cars, & is thus travelling significantly faster than everyone else. He also knows that he will need to brake much earlier than the others to avoid contact by the end of the straight, especially if the chaps in front are going in 3 or 4 abreast & there is no room to pass. The optimistic driver thinks he can overtake them all & come out in 1st place. He carries on, brakes way too late & ploughs through those in front causing chaos, & ends up off track or having to wait for those he hit. Experienced racers hardly ever find themselves in this position, on the rare occasions they do it's usually just down to braking errors, & most certainly not due to wildly optimistic overtaking maneuvers.

When overtaking another car near the end of a straight, it is good manners to leave the other driver his line, & stick to your own. It is bad manners to quickly swerve in front of the car you have just passed, take his line & brake. This is because you will be travelling much faster due to drafting him & will have to brake significantly earlier, the other driver will have almost no time to react by changing his line or braking point. This kind of bad racecraft can lead to many unnecessary incidents going into turns at the ends of straights, you will not see the more experienced & well rounded drivers performing this kind of maneuver.

When a thoughtful racer finds himself drafting a different make of car down a straight that's faster, but with less braking power & slower round corners, he pulls out of the draft much earlier than usual. This is so he can out brake him going into the next turn, without running into the back of him. The unthoughtful racer carries on oblivious to the fact that he is just about to cause a major incident. Good racecraft also involves taking into account the diverse range of vehicles, tunes, & personalities out on track, & how this can dynamically alter the way the race pans out through the various & ever changing situations as they unfold.

Please note; as regards Drafting, certain ponts may be less relevant when Slipstream is set to Real in GT6's online lobbies.

PS: If anyone wishes to use the GRG here on GT Planet, they are more than welcome to post a link to it in their thread. Anyone wishing to copy & paste this article onto another website may do so, as long as they credit me (VBR from GT Planet) as the original author, & provide a link back to the first post in this thread.

If both cars do somehow manage to make it through the corner side by side, which obviously results in lower cornering speeds, the bad driver has now let the rest of the field catch up some, let the the drivers ahead increase their lead or sometimes both.

Great information, especially for beginner drivers like me. I like to know what is good racing and what is considered just plain stupid. Some of it is common sense, but as im sure we all experienced in life, letting some people in on common sense is a good thing

I just want to add a detail to the following:
"When attempting to overtake up the inside, on the run up to a tight high speed corner like 130R on Suzuka for instance, sometimes you are not close enough to pull it off. The discerning driver knows when this is the case & will yeild by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary so as to not cause an incident, there is afterall only 1 racing line through 130R. The aggressive or overly optomistic driver goes for it regardless, stuffs it up the inside, causes an incident & puts his poor racecraft on display for all to see. You will not see mature racers out on track performing in this way, they get their overtaking done well before the apex of such corners."

A really good driver can see what the optomistic driver is trying to attempt. And reduce his speed to prevent an accident from happening even tough he does not need to. And also to make up for the optomistic drivers poor attempt to overtake, making the optomistic driver suceed with his move, and the optomistic driver probably think he is the best driver out there at that point.

I might try and collate a video of examples of such nuances in driving etiquette and further expand your guide.

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I was gonna do that, upload many short clips to You Tube with links in the text above to take you to the examples, but it's too hard for me to do with my limited equipment. If you do upload some let me know & I'll post links to them.

Many thanks to everyone else for all the feedback & I'm glad you liked the guide. If you meet drivers who wanna up their game just point them here, hehe!

If only most people could read this. This is how i race every night. There is always some one who tries to out brake you, and puts their nose to your quarter panel and spins you cause they dont know the braking points of a track Happens to me every night.

When being overtaken up the inside, on the run up to a tight high speed corner like 130R on Suzuka for instance, the competitive driver with good racecraft recognises when the battle is lost & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so that both cars can make the apex of the corner at pretty much full racing speed. The aggressive driver will carry on round the outside at full throttle in a dangerous attempt to defend his position, which is clearly already lost, this kind of optimism can lead to a catastrophic & entirely unnecessary incident. If both cars do somehow manage to make it through the corner side by side, which obviously results in lower cornering speeds, the bad driver has now let the rest of the field catch up some, let the the drivers ahead increase their lead or sometimes both. Not only is it bad manners, it is also stupid & counter productive, you will not see top class racers executing such mindlessly aggressive do or die maneuvers.

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Not even on the last lap of the race? When you're fighting for the win?

I always try to race as clean as I can, but if the win is on the line, and it's the last lap I'm not going to yield for someone that easily just because he's gotten inside me going into 130R. Especially when I'll have the inside line going into the next braking point for the Casio Triangle chicane. If it's the beginning/middle of the race, yes, it obviously makes no sense to do that, though.

Honestly, it's a good guide, but it just seems a tad on the elitist side. Calling people "stupid" in it isn't going to help you with that, either. You want to help them, not insult them, anger them and discourage them. The iRacing guide that Graham linked to a few posts above, in my opinion, does a better job at getting the points across to a new driver.

Not even on the last lap of the race? When you're fighting for the win?

I always try to race as clean as I can, but if the win is on the line, and it's the last lap I'm not going to yield for someone that easily just because he's gotten inside me going into 130R. Especially when I'll have the inside line going into the next braking point for the Casio Triangle chicane. If it's the beginning/middle of the race, yes, it obviously makes no sense to do that, though.

Honestly, it's a good guide, but it just seems a tad on the elitist side. Calling people "stupid" in it isn't going to help you with that, either. You want to help them, not insult them, anger them and discourage them. The iRacing guide that Graham linked to a few posts above, in my opinion, does a better job at getting the points across to a new driver.

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Firstly, there is a saying: "There's an exception to every rule", secondly: this is a guide, not a set of rules! Nonetheless, you're absolutely right, if it's the last lap & you're fighting for position, & both drivers want to go through the corner slower & side by side without causing an incident, of course they should, even I do this myself on the last lap if appropriate.

The situation I'm describing above isn't about the last lap, it's about all the other laps of the race, like if you're battling in P2 & P3 for example & trying to catch the lead car, but some idiot is trying to win every corner by stuffing it up the inside, which causes incidents, or just slows both cars up & drops you both towards the drivers behind, which is counter productive to winning.

You're wrong, in so much as: I'm not calling anyone stupid, I'm merely saying that it is a stupid thing to do. An intelligent racer would realise there's no point in battling for every corner when you can work together to catch the lead car, & then start battling for P1. Remember, this guide is all about gentlemanly racing in GT, this isn't the real world, & no one's gonna lose their job in a race team if they don't perform! Like I've always said: it's better to win friends, than to win a races by disrespecting others.

Many thanks for raising the point though, I was even considering adding it as an exception when I first wrote the guide, but decided not to as I thought it would be obvious anyway.

Firstly, there is a saying: "There's an exception to every rule", secondly: this is a guide, not a set of rules! Nonetheless, you're absolutely right, if it's the last lap & you're fighting for position, & both drivers want to go through the corner slower & side by side without causing an incident, of course they should, even I do this myself on the last lap if appropriate.

The situation I'm describing above isn't about the last lap, it's about all the other laps of the race, like if you're battling in P2 & P3 for example & trying to catch the lead car, but some idiot is trying to win every corner by stuffing it up the inside, which causes incidents, or just slows both cars up & drops you both towards the drivers behind, which is counter productive to winning.

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Ah, okay. Perhaps you should edit in a little exception to avoid that confusion

You're wrong, in so much as: I'm not calling anyone stupid, I'm merely saying that it is a stupid thing to do. An intelligent racer would realise there's no point in battling for every corner when you can work together to catch the lead car, & then start battling for P1. Remember, this guide is all about gentlemanly racing in GT, this isn't the real world, & no one's gonna lose their job in a race team if they don't perform! Like I've always said: it's better to win friends, than to win a races by disrespecting others.

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Yeah, I think I mixed up your guide, and the "would you rather" post you made after it. Totally my bad.

Many thanks for raising the point though, I was even considering adding it as an exception when I first wrote the guide, but decided not to as I thought it would be obvious anyway.

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I think that just a quick little "NOTE:" in italics or something under the paragraph would do good. Or they can just scroll down and see our posts if they want.

I did find it quite personal seeing as I recently created a major shunt at 130R during one of our last encounters. I was slipstreaming when all of a sudden - at the end of the straight - my phone vibrated my socks off (don't ask, powerful phone ) resulting in a distraction as in "euhm what was I doing, where was I on track, brake?... brake!, aargh".

I did find it quite personal seeing as I recently created a major shunt at 130R during one of our last encounters. I was slipstreaming when all of a sudden - at the end of the straight - my phone vibrated my socks off (don't ask, powerful phone ) resulting in a distraction as in "euhm what was I doing, where was I on track, brake?... brake!, aargh".